David Feuerstein

To Whom It May Concern, 

My name is Gideon King with Her Majesty’s British Expeditionary Force. Perhaps, by the time you have read this, that thing will already be among you and I will cease to be thought of as crazy. Though, my hopes are not high in that latter regard. 

The good doctor who tended to my wounds upon my return from the front tells me that I have a stress of the brain. He says my memories are nothing but my fragile psyche’s way of rationalizing the things I saw. The things I still see. 

However, I don’t believe him. How would he know anyways? He wasn’t there to see it. He didn’t see the defilement of Phillip’s body or the terrible fate that befell Martin… My two friends. 

But I saw it! Each and every gory detail. 

We had been sent out into no man’s land. That vast swathe of land where only death exists. Perhaps, then, it was our fate to meet death itself. 

The Germans had been pushed back and our main force had followed after them. Our orders were to bury the dead where they lay to prevent the spread of disease. Only a few of us were left behind for this task. We set out in several separate groups. Phillip, Martin, and myself were one such group. 

“Lots of bodies,” Phillip muttered as we made our way to our section. “How long might this take?” 

“If we don’t get sick while we’re working?” Martin responded. “Maybe three days just for our section.”

“Come off it, Martin,” I said. “Just the three of us? At least a week for our section.” 

“I hope the mice take their time getting here,” Phillip said. “The last time we did this, they were the worst part – squirming around in peoples’ mouths and such.” 

“You’re worried about the mice?” Martin asked. “I’m more worried about that story that’s been going around. You guys know, right? The thing that shows up after a battle ends?” 

“I haven’t a clue what you’re going on about,” I said. 

“I’m sure you’ve heard of it,” Martin said. “I think it eats the dead bodies right Phillip? Though I heard it’s basically a ball of hands so I don’t know how that works.” 

“Ah!” Phillip rang out. “I know what you’re talking about. I heard that was just some propaganda put out by the Germans. Sort of like they’re trying to influence us to not kill them by scaring us.” 

“If something like that existed, couldn’t we just shoot it?” I asked as I tapped the pistol strapped to my waist. 

“Gideon,” Martin began, “I’m almost certain bullets would not do anything to a monster.” 

“I guess we’ll see,” I said with a slight grin. 

We worked for a few hours digging a large pit that we proceeded to fill with the intact bodies around us. Both friend and foe in the same hole as death does not discriminate. The bodies that had been torn into different pieces were buried where they were found. Simple mounds of dirt were enough for the lower jaws, hands, and legs scattered about. 

Before we filled the hole, we decided to take a break. Evening was approaching and a fog had rolled across the land. It felt as if it were just Phillip, Martin, myself, and the bodies in the pit. 

“If it weren’t for the craters, barb wire, and trenches, this might be a nice place,” Martin said. 

“I don’t know if any of these places will ever be considered ‘nice’ again,” Phillip replied. 

“True,” I said. “Death stains whatever it touches just as red wine stains white cloth.” 

A silence fell on us. Martin cut through it when he said, “Well Phillip, it looks like we got a regular Shakespeare here!” 

All three of us started laughing as I gave a bow like an actor closing a show. As I was bowing, movement in the corner of my eye near the pit caught my attention. It seemed as though something had been pulled quickly from the pit and into the surrounding fog. 

I instantly shot my head up and pointed at the pit. “Did you see that?” I asked. 

Neither of them had seen it, but they stood up with me and got ready to draw their sidearms. 

“Someone at the pit?” Phillip asked. 

“I don’t know. Maybe one of them wasn’t dead?” 

Martin stepped forward towards the pit and drew his sidearm. “Show yourself!” he ordered. 

No response came except for silence. Deafening silence. It was a silence that comes just before a predator strikes at its prey; just before the weak is crushed by the strong. 

Martin took a few steps past the pit full of bodies and became partially enshrouded in the fog. “Well lads, I don’t see or hear anyone. It might’ve just been a crow or a plump mouse,” he said before he started laughing. 

His laughter ended almost as quickly as it began. Something that looked like a long arm with a hand shot at a high speed from deep within the fog and into Martin’s legs. They bent, but not like normal. No, they bent backwards at the knees. The rest of his body flopped to the ground, the toes of his boots pointing up at his waist. His face sunk partially into the mud.

Martin let out a cry like an injured animal as the hand came back around and grasped his head. Let me tell you, the hand was larger than his head to the point I believe it could have crushed his head like you and I can a grape. 

Another hand came out of the darkness and grasped Martin’s left shoulder. At this, Phillip and I came out of the daze we were in, drew our sidearms, and began firing at the arms. The bullets did nothing. It seemed as though they simply sunk into the flesh of the thing. 

To our horror, the hands seemed to lift Martin into the air. As it did so, Martin’s legs unfolded to a more natural position, but they dangled like wet noodles.  

In a final act of bravery, Martin, who had not released his sidearm during the whole ordeal, raised it and fired blindly in the direction the arms were coming from. I do not believe he injured it in the slightest, but I do believe he angered it.  

Martin fully unloaded his weapon before the hands on his shoulder and head pulled hard in opposite directions. Phillip and I could do nothing but watch as Martin was torn from his left shoulder to his right hip in a diagonal but not all the way through.

If Martin still lived after that, the next part certainly killed him. 

The hand holding his shoulder released leaving only the one on his head. This one slammed Martin’s body into the dirt repeatedly with such force that we could feel each sickening vibration. Along with the vibrations were the noises from his body. It squeaked and squelched like wet meat being slapped. 

Eventually, the portion of Martin’s body below the tear flew off from his body and landed right in front of Phillip and I, spraying our pants and boots with his blood. Phillip fell to the ground and I stood still stunned at the brutality of what we had witnessed.  

The remaining hand, seemingly satiated, stopped slamming what was left of Martin’s body and simply dragged him deeper into the fog. Three more hands shot out from the fog and grabbed three bodies from the pit to also take with them. 

It was over. 

Phillip and I did not say anything to each other. We only stared at Martin’s legs. Martin, who only minutes ago was joking with us about Shakespeare, was dead. As for Phillip and I, we might as well have been dead. 

I broke the silence and shakily said, “We should… go.” 

Phillip looked past me and shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, no, not in the fog.” 

I didn’t say anything in response. He had a good point. Martin had stepped into the thicker portion of the fog and had died.  

“Help me move this,” Phillip suddenly said as he gestured at Martin’s legs. 

We dragged the legs to the pit and tossed them in then moved as far away from it as possible without leaving the thinner area of the fog. 

“So, we just sit here?” I asked. “What happens when night comes and it gets even cooler and the fog thick-” 

“I don’t know Gideon!” Phillip snapped. “I don’t know… I guess…” He gestured randomly in front of himself. 

He didn’t have to finish for me to know what he was trying to say. That thing had murdered, no, slaughtered Martin like it was nothing. It would surely do the same to us when night came and the fog thickened. 

“I think…” I started. “I think I’ll go now.” 

Phillip turned and grabbed my arm. “No,” he said. “You’ll die.” 

“I’ll die here too. At least I’ll see it coming with the little bit of light left.” 

“Gideon, the fog could still die down. We just have to wait and-” 

“Look around us Phillip! The fog’s only getting thicker and closer. It’ll be on us within the hour.” 

Phillip let go of my arm and said, “Do what you want.” 

I looked at him but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. He knew I was right. Die in the fog or die later by the pit. I think he just didn’t want to accept it.  

I turned and stared into the fog. It was so thick that it seemed like it could hide the largest animal in it from prying eyes. When I stepped into it, I would be completely blind. I could easily trip and fall onto the knife of some poor dead soldier or find myself entangled in barbed wire, unable to escape.  

Those possibilities all seemed preferable to what was the most likely outcome. I didn’t want to die like Martin: torn apart like some kind of animal.  

A pit opened in my stomach that filled with every imaginable outcome. Each had their own flavor of terror. I imagined hands grasping both of my legs and pulling apart, splitting me up the middle like a child peeling a blade of grass. I thought about how I would be able to look down for a moment and see my precious insides splattering onto the ground below. I thought about my blood mixing with the dirt to make a brownish-red liquid that would forever stain the very soil beneath my feet. Then I imagined the final part of my being holding together at the very top of my head. The last piece of skin making me one would tear and I would become two. 

This violent image awakened a thought in me. Perhaps Phillip was right. Maybe staying put was the correct choice. Maybe dying in the company of a friend would be preferable to dying alone. Had Martin been a little happier that we were there when he died? A little less afraid? 

New doubt sprouted in my head. Phillip’s plan to sit and wait made more sense by the second.  

I turned back to him and said, “You know, maybe I should just wait here after all.” 

Phillips nodded and said, “Yeah, as long as we don’t go in the thick parts of the fog, we’re safe.” 

As if it was some sick joke, a rumbling came from beneath the ground below us. Phillip and I didn’t know what it was. The only thing we knew is that it was getting closer to the surface. We braced for the worse. 

Two hands sprung from the earth behind Phillip in a rain of dirt. They grasped onto his legs in an instant and pulled him into the hole they had created, but it wasn’t wide enough for Phillip to fit through.  

The sudden surprise of the hands shocked me so much that I went onto my back and began backing away from the scene unfolding in front of me. Phillip was in the ground up to his waist. He pushed hard against the ground with his arms, but did not budge at all. 

Coming to my senses, I scrambled over to Phillip, grabbed his hands, and began trying to pull him out of the hole to no avail. He must’ve realized his situation was hopeless as he began yelling for help like a man begging a deaf God to save him. 

I pulled and pulled until it happened. At once, Phillip’s face went bright red and he spurted blood out of his mouth like a hose. My friend’s blood peppered my face like little red freckles of death. 

I continued pulling and felt him move a little. At this I yelled, “You’re close! You’re coming!” 

Phillip only responded by rolling his eyes to the back of his head and spitting even more blood out of his mouth. 

He began to feel loose so I gave one great pull that dislodged Phillip and sent me onto my back.  

“Oh, thank God, Phillip,” I said before looking down at him. 

When I looked down, I screamed. Between my legs was the upper portion of Phillip. Everything from the waist down was missing. His innards traced a line from his body, through the dirt, and into the hole that had consumed the rest of the body.  

I started shaking and instinctually shoved Phillip’s torn body away from me. From my first battle at Mons to Ypress, I had seen and done my fair share of killing. I saw friends missing half of their faces; brains leaking out like pudding. I saw severed limbs, bodies, and the worst humanity had to offer. Through all this I held onto my sanity, but something here broke me. 

The last thing I remember was scrambling to my feet and running wildly into the fog. As I ran, I could have sworn I saw the outline of something huge and bulbous hiding within the fog. I swore I saw hundreds, no, thousands of limbs coming off of it and scattering into all directions. 

The good doctor told me I was found by another group that had been sent out that day to bury other bodies in the area. He told me I was in a delirious state screaming something about a strange monster in the fog. Apparently, I was loaded into one of the Red Cross ambulances and taken away. The nurses on board the ambulance were so distraught by my insistence that my friends had been torn apart by a monster, that they tied me down for the entirety of the ride. 

I have been at a hospital in France for two weeks now and have related all of this to the doctor. He continued to tell me that none of this ever occurred. He told me that Martin and Phillip were not torn by monstrous hands, but that they were the victims of unexploded artillery shells they accidentally set off somehow. He told me that my memories are only my way of rationalizing their deaths. He said that the mind is a fragile thing and that uncommon horrors are enough to shatter even the strongest of psyches. 

Despite his words, I know I have not yet lost the faculties of my mind. For, you see, a fog has persisted around the hospital since this morning and I have seen it. It was far away at first; only the faintest outline was visible. But it is close now.  

I’ve watched its silhouette grow closer and closer throughout the day. I even alerted the nurses to its presence but they told me to pay it no mind. They said it was just an illusion created by my still recovering mind. 

I know the truth however. This devil has not yet had its appetite for death satiated and seeks another meal. Being the only person who seems to see it, I have determined it is here for me. Well, I will give it the body it desires, but it will not have my life. That alone will be mine to take. 

I will make for the window of my fourth story room soon and leap head first into the ground below.  

I pray to the mighty Lord above that he will guide my soul from that devil’s grasp. And I pray that my account will serve as proof that something terrible prowls the battlefields of man. It feeds from the death we create but possesses an unquenchable appetite.  

Gideon King 

First Army 

British Expeditionary Force